Revelation 12 to 14 marks a major division in the Apocalypse. These chapters constitute a major hiatus before the final display of God’s wrath in the seven plagues of Revelation 16. John traces in these chapters the underlying cause for the hostility and suffering that fall upon the church. That cause is nothing less than the rage of Satan against the church. If you do not have a category for Satan’s rage, John says, then you cannot understand deeply what is happening in contemporary Christianity.